Which means that today is Fat Tuesday.
I’ve written before about how, since moving to Chicago, my family has wholeheartedly embraced the Chicago-by-way-of-Poland Fat Tuesday tradition of Pączki Day. And, in fact, I’m sitting at home[fn1] with six pączki in a box on my counter, with however many more my wife is bringing home after work (she was going to hit at least two Polish bakeries on the way to and from work).
But I’m not posting this to boast about how many pączki I’m going to eat today (or, at least, I’m not posting this solely to boast about how many I’m going to eat); rather, I spent this morning thinking about the tension in Christianity between asceticism and consumption.
A lot of Christianity—and a lot of Mormonism—calls for some degree of self-deprivation. We fast the first Sunday of every month and we consecrate our fast and our money to helping those who need help. And tomorrow marks the beginning of Lent, an extended, important, and, on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday at least, obligatory fast in many Christian traditions.
But today is about consumption. It’s about enjoying the bounties that the world has to offer. Here in Chicago, that means pączki. In England, it’s pancakes.[fn2]
And the relevant consumption is not just food: for example, in New Orleans, it means consuming costumes and dance and some of my favorite music in the whole world.
This tension isn’t something new, invented with the advent of frying and Brass Bands. It goes back all the way to the New Testament. In Matt. 11:18-19, Jesus says:
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil. The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.
So which is it? Well, both, I assume. We focus a lot on the John side of things in our church rhetoric. And I suspect that many of us live the Son of man side of things in our personal lives. And they’re both okay! And we should do both! We fast, yes, but we also celebrate. We give generously, but we also consume the bounties we’ve been blessed with.
And the juxtaposition of Fat Tuesday and Lent reminds us of these two sides of our eternal identity: the aesthete and the materialist. How do we balance the two? That, I believe, is one thing we’re called to figure out.
Also, even though I’m in Chicago, not New Orleans, I thought I’d celebrate the many bounties and blessings we have by recording a version of the New Orleans classic, “When the Saints Go Marching In.”
[fn1] At home because this week is Loyola’s Spring Break and that, combined with a continuing lingering worldwide pandemic, means I’m working from home today.
[fn2] I actually made pancakes for breakfast, not deliberately in celebration of Shrove Tuesday because, in the rush to get kids fed before they left for school, I didn’t even think about the fact that it was Pancake Day in some parts of the world.